4 ms·

Microsoft is complex. It was evil in the nineties. It's a different company now. It has some evil aspects, like any large organization, but it seems to treat cu

Microsoft is complex. It was evil in the nineties. It's a different company now. It has some evil aspects, like any large organization, but it seems to treat customers better, and is a major open source contributor. On the whole, I don't feel bad about it anymore. I feel like it's one of the better tech giants, ethically, in 2021. But yes, leaving organizations like the RIAA, BSA, and similar groups of evil would provide for nicer optics of the new, non-evil Microsoft being, well, non-evil. It's a good business model too. MSFT stagnated based on evil when it no longer had the same type of monopoly power. Non-evil Microsoft is doing much better. I'll take Azure of GCE now, despite GCE having better tech, since Microsoft is more honest than Google. (although, to be clear, I did pick AWS over both)

sneak 6y ago
> It was evil in the nineties. It's a different company now. Yeah, now they just sell and support the software that their national government uses to run concentration camps down in Texas. Microsoft in the 1990s was simply anticompetitive. Today it's a horse of a different color.
PhantomGremlin 6y ago
It was evil in the nineties. Not just evil, "More Evil Than Satan Himself". That phrase was probably the very first Google Bomb, back in 1999. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_bombing#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_bombing#History
HWR_14 6y ago
Microsoft was evil in the late 90s. In the early 90s, I'm pretty sure they were still viewed positively. Frankly, the MSFT's "this company and everything they do is awesome" to "this company and everything they do is evil" followed a similar timeline to Google's, just shifted by a few decades.
michaelmrose 6y ago
It's ceo was part of it's leadership team during the timeframe when you assert that it was evil the same is true of a lot of folks. It was unethical then and it's unethical now with a strong desire for better PR
serf 6y ago
>Microsoft is complex. It was evil in the nineties. It's a different company now. I don't get this marketing campaign that I read over and over again in any thread mentioning Microsoft. It's a real fantasy; Microsoft begins realizing that there is some real cold cash in the open source biz, hops onto supporting linux in any way that might cause Microsoft to see some revenue (WSL comes to mind), and this somehow causes everyone to start parroting "Microsoft isn't evil anymore!" Two ironies : 1) "Microsoft isn't evil anymore" was motivated by Microsoft losing ground on the OS side of things and acquiescing into the support of another system as long as it made a buck doing so. 2) "not evil anymore " is a pretty fantastically horrible show of support, and honestly I am made queasy by supporting any formally evil entity. Does anyone buy this stuff? 'Big corporation' isn't good or evil, they are capitalistic with morals and ethics that try to align best with whatever cohort will attract the most profit by doing so. Don't be fooled into actually thinking about this problem with good/evil in mind, it's a distraction. It's just a more attractive way to frame 'We changed directions -- since that thing we formally hated as competition is profitable now we won't make it our mission statement to disparage and destroy it as a target, now we're going to use it to make a buck ourselves instead while evangelizing about the product with about as much effort as we tried to disparage it earlier in time.'
- kortex 6y ago
  > Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy.” - Quotation: Captain G. M. Gilbert. Not to Godwin's law the convo, I just think this definition is accurate, relatable, and salient. Big, capitalist corporations are almost by design, incapable of aligning with values other than profit. Their only approximation of empathy is when PR affects the bottom line.
- woofie11 6y ago
  Corporations seek profits. They do so in different ways, with different biases and cultures. Some are a net positive on the world. Some are a net negative. This is a false abstraction: "they are capitalistic with morals and ethics that try to align best with whatever cohort will attract the most profit by doing so." One step more accurate is would be "THEY THINK will attract the most profit." This reflects personalities. One more step more accurate is that a corporation is a network of people, most of whom don't care about corporate profits. If I were an engineer at Microsoft, I don't see why I'd care how much I helped or hurt Microsoft's bottom line. I'd care about: 1) Having fun 2) Getting paid myself 3) Getting promoted / setting myself up for future job opportunities Those sorts of motivations apply to everyone, right up through the CEO. I work at a not-for-profit where people DO care (myself included), and I've worked at start-ups, where there was a mix. Big corporations are an abstraction. Microsoft, for about two decades, led to a lot of harm to the world and very little good. If Microsoft didn't make Windows 95, we'd have OS/2, NeXT, QNX, Amiga, or something else. It didn't do much innovating. It was just sort of a big parasite, sucking money out of the economy, and lobbying for corrupt laws. Today, it's just like any other megacorp.

sneak 6y ago

> It was evil in the nineties. It's a different company now. Yeah, now they just sell and support the software that their national government uses to run concentration camps down in Texas. Microsoft in the 1990s was simply anticompetitive. Today it's a horse of a different color.

PhantomGremlin 6y ago

It was evil in the nineties. Not just evil, "More Evil Than Satan Himself". That phrase was probably the very first Google Bomb, back in 1999. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_bombing#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_bombing#History

HWR_14 6y ago

Microsoft was evil in the late 90s. In the early 90s, I'm pretty sure they were still viewed positively. Frankly, the MSFT's "this company and everything they do is awesome" to "this company and everything they do is evil" followed a similar timeline to Google's, just shifted by a few decades.

michaelmrose 6y ago

It's ceo was part of it's leadership team during the timeframe when you assert that it was evil the same is true of a lot of folks. It was unethical then and it's unethical now with a strong desire for better PR

serf 6y ago

>Microsoft is complex. It was evil in the nineties. It's a different company now. I don't get this marketing campaign that I read over and over again in any thread mentioning Microsoft. It's a real fantasy; Microsoft begins realizing that there is some real cold cash in the open source biz, hops onto supporting linux in any way that might cause Microsoft to see some revenue (WSL comes to mind), and this somehow causes everyone to start parroting "Microsoft isn't evil anymore!" Two ironies : 1) "Microsoft isn't evil anymore" was motivated by Microsoft losing ground on the OS side of things and acquiescing into the support of another system as long as it made a buck doing so. 2) "not evil anymore " is a pretty fantastically horrible show of support, and honestly I am made queasy by supporting any formally evil entity. Does anyone buy this stuff? 'Big corporation' isn't good or evil, they are capitalistic with morals and ethics that try to align best with whatever cohort will attract the most profit by doing so. Don't be fooled into actually thinking about this problem with good/evil in mind, it's a distraction. It's just a more attractive way to frame 'We changed directions -- since that thing we formally hated as competition is profitable now we won't make it our mission statement to disparage and destroy it as a target, now we're going to use it to make a buck ourselves instead while evangelizing about the product with about as much effort as we tried to disparage it earlier in time.'

kortex 6y ago
> Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy.” - Quotation: Captain G. M. Gilbert. Not to Godwin's law the convo, I just think this definition is accurate, relatable, and salient. Big, capitalist corporations are almost by design, incapable of aligning with values other than profit. Their only approximation of empathy is when PR affects the bottom line.
woofie11 6y ago
Corporations seek profits. They do so in different ways, with different biases and cultures. Some are a net positive on the world. Some are a net negative. This is a false abstraction: "they are capitalistic with morals and ethics that try to align best with whatever cohort will attract the most profit by doing so." One step more accurate is would be "THEY THINK will attract the most profit." This reflects personalities. One more step more accurate is that a corporation is a network of people, most of whom don't care about corporate profits. If I were an engineer at Microsoft, I don't see why I'd care how much I helped or hurt Microsoft's bottom line. I'd care about: 1) Having fun 2) Getting paid myself 3) Getting promoted / setting myself up for future job opportunities Those sorts of motivations apply to everyone, right up through the CEO. I work at a not-for-profit where people DO care (myself included), and I've worked at start-ups, where there was a mix. Big corporations are an abstraction. Microsoft, for about two decades, led to a lot of harm to the world and very little good. If Microsoft didn't make Windows 95, we'd have OS/2, NeXT, QNX, Amiga, or something else. It didn't do much innovating. It was just sort of a big parasite, sucking money out of the economy, and lobbying for corrupt laws. Today, it's just like any other megacorp.